The problem I have with this is that I cannot find any reference to it from any "reputable" news source. Every story I've seen reference back to "salon.com reported."

I'd think this would be pretty big news if it were confirmed. Right now, the harassment has some of the halmarks of a hoax. Don't know if it's true or not, but I do question the fact that every story I've seen on it is worded pretty much exactly the same, and not one source has elaborated beyond what "salon.com reported." Why would anyone with a serious story to tell like this harassment in this case go to salon.com, rather than someone like THEIR LOCAL POLICE or the AP or some such.

The original article says he plans to talk to a RETIRED police office and plans to talk to the FBI. Okay, so let me understand this. You are being threatened by high profile agitators in a very high profile and emotional case and your first impulse is to go to salon.com and you later plan some vague talking to people perhaps no longer even in Law Enforcement?

Sorry, guys, but I would not characterize salon.com as trustworthy AT ALL on anything they report. It just smacks of salon.com putting the screws to the "truthers" and everyone else jumping on that bandwagon.

Doesn't pass the smell test to me, and I've been involved in a few "filing false report" investigations.

That simply regurgitates what was reported on salon.com; it's not yahoo's original reporting. The wording of pretty much every 'repeat' of this story is close to the same, that yahoo story included. This nearly identical wording includes the phrase, "salon.com reported," as does your yahoo linked story.

Yahoo did not vet this story at all, at least there is no evidence of the vetting in their own article.

"The Today Show" stuff may be new...have to look at that (later, when I have a bit more time).

That simply regurgitates what was reported on salon.com; it's not yahoo's original reporting. The wording of pretty much every 'repeat' of this story is close to the same, that yahoo story included. This nearly identical wording includes the phrase, "salon.com reported," as does your yahoo linked story.Yahoo did not vet this story at all, at least there is no evidence of the vetting in their own article."The Today Show" stuff may be new...have to look at that (later, when I have a bit more time).

Yahoo news stories certainly are wretched, but I expect they might at least do a bit of checking. As dubious as their stories are, Yahoo is in the mainstream (I see them 'cause I go there for my email). I don't know that the story is "big news" but it's sad news.

Yahoo news stories certainly are wretched, but I expect they might at least do a bit of checking. As dubious as their stories are, Yahoo is in the mainstream (I see them 'cause I go there for my email). I don't know that the story is "big news" but it's sad news.

I'm not sure Yahoo does any checking. There's no evidence of that in this story when all they did was report "salon.com reports."

The problem is the number of "copies" of this story that are out there. I did a Google search earlier today, and of all the hits on the front page, most of them (all but one, if memory serves) was the exact same text.

So, here's what it looks like: salon.com "reported" (they are FAR from reputable in my observation) some munchy little tidbit in the larger scheme of the shooting story and the "truthers," Yahoo and a bunch of others picked it up, repeated it and as it gained traction, the idea "went viral."

Here's one of the things about Yahoo's "reporting" of this that gives me great pause (about them, not really the story itself). There's not one single line in there about "we contacted {the man}" or "we tried to contact him" or "we contacted the police to verify salon.com's claims."

Just because salon.com (or any other) site publishes something juicy does not make it true. Yahoo's responsibility is to vet their own publication, as it is for every other web site that repeated this "article" verbatim (or very nearly so...did you happen to look at the repeat copies?).

They are claiming a crime has been committed and the victim has not contacted the police. They are trying the offenders in the court of the media - not a whole lot different than the Elmo guy, really - and if you think about this for a second, it's really, really dangerous.

The "proper" procedure for this sort of thing:

Step 1: Victim of a crime calls the policeStep 2: Police Investigate to try to determine if the facts are as reported by the victim; in principle, they have no dog in the fight and should be able to be objective in this analysis.Step 3: While an active investigation, coverage in the media is VERY circumspect, if at all. There MAY be a story "there is a police investigation under way into allegations regarding harassment of {victim} by {suspect}." Even that is morally questionable, in my personal opinion.Step 4: The police can verify that there is an investigation, and they may even choose to state what the victim reported to them and what they have or have not found so far.

NONE of this has occurred. No. The victim when to salon.com and told his story BEFORE reporting a crime to the police. There is NO WAY to verify the veracity of his claim...salon.com does not have the legal authority to check phone records, take a suspect into custody if probably cause is met, etc.

NOTHING of the other side is being told. There's no plea of guilty or not guilty...just an assumption of guilt, and time and time again "the media," through crap reporting like this whole example, gets away with it.

I hold no love for the truthers and what they are doing in general. But it's equally reprehensible that salon.com is exploiting the larger story and all the emotion associated with it to seek to harm the truthers via unverified reporting, and Yahoo, by repeating it, shares in that culpability.

Just like "Freedom of Speech" does not give one the right to yell FIRE in a crowded theater, "Freedom of the Press" does not give THEM the right to publish whatever the hell they want that suits them. salon.com (and by extension Yahoo and all the others) SHOULD have said to that guy, "call us back when you've filed a report to the police ... a police report that is verifiable and a matter of public record."

Yahoo news stories certainly are wretched, but I expect they might at least do a bit of checking. As dubious as their stories are, Yahoo is in the mainstream (I see them 'cause I go there for my email). I don't know that the story is "big news" but it's sad news.

I'm not sure Yahoo does any checking. There's no evidence of that in this story when all they did was report "salon.com reports."The problem is the number of "copies" of this story that are out there. I did a Google search earlier today, and of all the hits on the front page, most of them (all but one, if memory serves) was the exact same text. So, here's what it looks like: salon.com "reported" (they are FAR from reputable in my observation) some munchy little tidbit in the larger scheme of the shooting story and the "truthers," Yahoo and a bunch of others picked it up, repeated it and as it gained traction, the idea "went viral." Here's one of the things about Yahoo's "reporting" of this that gives me great pause (about them, not really the story itself). There's not one single line in there about "we contacted {the man}" or "we tried to contact him" or "we contacted the police to verify salon.com's claims."Just because salon.com (or any other) site publishes something juicy does not make it true. Yahoo's responsibility is to vet their own publication, as it is for every other web site that repeated this "article" verbatim (or very nearly so...did you happen to look at the repeat copies?).They are claiming a crime has been committed and the victim has not contacted the police. They are trying the offenders in the court of the media - not a whole lot different than the Elmo guy, really - and if you think about this for a second, it's really, really dangerous. The "proper" procedure for this sort of thing:Step 1: Victim of a crime calls the policeStep 2: Police Investigate to try to determine if the facts are as reported by the victim; in principle, they have no dog in the fight and should be able to be objective in this analysis.Step 3: While an active investigation, coverage in the media is VERY circumspect, if at all. There MAY be a story "there is a police investigation under way into allegations regarding harassment of {victim} by {suspect}." Even that is morally questionable, in my personal opinion.Step 4: The police can verify that there is an investigation, and they may even choose to state what the victim reported to them and what they have or have not found so far.NONE of this has occurred. No. The victim when to salon.com and told his story BEFORE reporting a crime to the police. There is NO WAY to verify the veracity of his claim...salon.com does not have the legal authority to check phone records, take a suspect into custody if probably cause is met, etc.NOTHING of the other side is being told. There's no plea of guilty or not guilty...just an assumption of guilt, and time and time again "the media," through crap reporting like this whole example, gets away with it.I hold no love for the truthers and what they are doing in general. But it's equally reprehensible that salon.com is exploiting the larger story and all the emotion associated with it to seek to harm the truthers via unverified reporting, and Yahoo, by repeating it, shares in that culpability.Just like "Freedom of Speech" does not give one the right to yell FIRE in a crowded theater, "Freedom of the Press" does not give THEM the right to publish whatever the hell they want that suits them. salon.com (and by extension Yahoo and all the others) SHOULD have said to that guy, "call us back when you've filed a report to the police ... a police report that is verifiable and a matter of public record."Nope...can't do that. That's the "right" thing to do.

I guess I should be flattered to have engaged you, but I didn't write these stories and I won't defend them. I don't visit Salon.com and not interested in their agenda, but I will say that I don't think it's "equally reprehensible" if Salon exploited and failed to verify a story than to harass a person or hurl obscenities and accusations of falsehoods, particularly in the wake of this hideous tragedy.

No, because at this point in the discussion I don't care if the story turned out to be true. As is often the case in this discussions, I'm talking about something much, much bigger than that.

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I guess I should be flattered to have engaged you, but I didn't write these stories and I won't defend them.

And of course, my "beef" is not with you; it's just that your linking to that story, written and promulgated as it was, has sparked a discussion topic. Again, it's bigger than this story and this particular instance of salon.com, et al publishing what they did.

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I will say that I don't think it's "equally reprehensible" if Salon exploited and failed to verify a story than to harass a person or hurl obscenities and accusations of falsehoods, particularly in the wake of this hideous tragedy.

This I find very sad, because what I am talking about is the free rein salon.com, yahoo.com and a whole bunch of other 'media outlets' apparently have in reporting only one side of a story in a manner in which their reporting can, and does, destroy people's livelihood, relationships, reputations, and the like.

How is that less heinous than someone harassing a man with the telephone?

Remove it from the context of the CT school shooting. Drop that 'emotion' from the discussion and think about this logically.

Some low life calls a man on the telephone and harasses him. This is a crime. In our criminal system, an accused has a presumption of innocent and certain protections from the government that are designed to protect reputation and other aspects of their life. There is a due process that is so fundamental it is codified into our national charter.

The point that has to be grasped is that this due process is part of a larger social order than merely the construction of the legal system. It's not a set of rules that tell courts how to go about prosecuting criminals. Due process is socially valuable, and the legal system is merely the implementation of that process.

But that due process, on the social level, the MUCH deeper level than just the legal system, is being completely circumvented.

salon.com did not vet their story and it was soon all over the Internet, and due precisely to the emotional nature of the background of the story (that it has to do with a school shooting is completely immaterial...if some dude randomly called salon.com and reported phone harassment, would it have been thus reported? If not...that's a violation of the principles of due process and "blind lady justice").

As I said, salon.com's proper response in the arena of the larger social responsibility would have been to tell the guy to call the cops, THEN call them.

Truth or hoax, only proper investigation will tell that tale, this case immediately reminded me of the cases we had when a woman falsely reported rape. The "pop" approach would be to say, "well, due to the emotions involved, no woman would falsely report a rape," but it did happen and more often than might generally be appreciated.

This is serious business, this accusing people of crimes and NOT giving them any day in court (under our rules of due process, such as to FACE THEIR ACCUSER and cross examine him) before they are assumed guilty and their lives are vastly negatively impacted.

Sorry you don't think this is heinous behavior on the part of "the media." {Warning: Rhetorical Statement Follows, rhetorical "you" in use; I absolutely do not want this to happen}. Maybe someone will tell salon.com a juicy story about someone you know (no, I don't know any of the truthers involved in this mess...not my point so don't read into this statement that I support the harassment or the 'truth' movement) and you can witness how heinous what they do really is from that perspective.

The bad part is that it's so unnecessary to even be at the point we are having this discussion. There is a proper course of action that is socially sanctioned and legal. The guy got harassing calls? He should call the police. Why on earth his first impulse was to call salon.com is beyond me, but I can guess.

So, you've probably seen that "SANDY HOOK EXPOSED!" conspiracy video on your timeline over the past few days. It's a conspiracy video that's gotten something along the lines of ten million views that claims the Sandy Hook Shooting was set up by the government.

Snopes just debunked the entire video. I think it's one of the best jobs Snopes has done.

a***oles getting attention, and unfortunately you people feel for it. This is why I stay away from this, I am not getting suckered in the bulls**t, because the bulls**t will lead to this kind of s**t, and this kind of s**t is what is driving people apart and cutting throats.